This image was taken by Left Navigation Camera onboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 3799. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Download image ›

Right here in Toronto, the climate feels like summer season. But in Gale Crater it is coming towards the finish of Autumn. At this time of year, we enter Aphelion Cloud Belt season, when we see frequent formation of water-ice clouds. When not as striking as the twilight clouds earlier in the year, these clouds type just about every Mars year at about the very same time and final for several months, producing this the fantastic chance to discover about martian clouds. To achieve that, the ENV group supplements our year-round cloud observations, the zenith and suprahorizon motion pictures (which point straight overhead, and close to the horizon), and two seasonal observations, the Phase Function Sky Survey and the Cloud Altitude Observation. These can inform us about how the clouds themselves and the water-ice crystals inside them behave, and all 4 of these observations are in this weekend’s strategy.
It really is not just about the clouds even though this weekend. We’re nonetheless climbing by means of the canyon, so the strategy begins out with get in touch with science followed by a further brief drive, and then some remote science.
Extra especially, we get started with a Mastcam mosaic of the inverted channel and a ChemCam LIBS observation of ‘Kourou,’ a nearby dark float rock. Immediately after this, MAHLI is acquiring up close with ‘Terre Firme’, and then we’ll brush the dust off of ‘Lorenco’ and get APXS and MAHLI get in touch with science on it. Immediately after a nap, we’ll wake up for some evening time imaging of the CheMin inlet with MAHLI.
The subsequent sol, Mastcam will have a field day imaging ‘Lorenco,’ ‘Kourou,’ ‘Owenteik,’ ‘Teotonio,’ ‘Rizere de Mana’ and a nearby vein network. Then ChemCam will take a LIBS observation of ‘Rizere de Mana’ and a mosaic of the buttes ‘Alto Alegre.’ We’ll then make our short drive uphill.
The subsequent sol of the strategy has a little untargeted science block, exactly where ENV will appear for dust devils and characterise the quantity of dust involving us and the distant crater rim and ChemCam AEGIS will autonomously pick a target. Immediately after that, we’ll go back to sleep but that is not it for the weekend – we wake up early the subsequent morning for our weekly morning ENV activities to finish up the strategy.